First, we need to enhance political trust to safeguard regional peace and stability. The Eurasian continent suffered greatly from the scourge of war in history and thus values peace more than anyone else. Nothing could be achieved without a peaceful and stable environment. China believes that regional affairs should be determined by countries and people of this region and supports them in pursuing development paths suited to their national conditions. We maintain that all parties should abide by the purpose and principles of the UN Charter, and resolve disputes and conflicts through dialogue and consultations. We oppose intervention from the outside. We should increase communications and coordination and make unswerving efforts to safeguard regional peace and stability.
Second, we need to open our markets wider to promote common development. The Eurasian continent is one of the most promising regions in the world in terms of consumption and investment. As long as we open our markets to each other and draw on each other's strengths, we can develop long and stable cooperation. We should deepen cooperation in customs, quality inspection, e-commerce, transit transport, standard certification and intellectual property rights, facilitate free flow of personnel, goods, capital, technology and services within the region, and jointly resist trade protectionism. We should improve existing regional and sub-regional cooperation mechanisms and build closer economic and trade arrangements at a faster pace, including negotiating bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements. We should protect the legal rights of enterprises and boost the confidence of investors. We should deepen financial cooperation and provide financial guarantee for major cooperation projects. We should, in a spirit of solidarity and mutual support, provide necessary financial, technological and personnel assistance to countries with economic difficulties in the region to help raise their capability for self-development. Our cooperation projects should be more oriented toward the well-being of the people so that more people can share the fruits of the regional economic cooperation.
Third, we need to advance cooperation in cross-border infrastructure to accelerate the connectivity progress. Sound infrastructure can promote people-to-people exchanges and help drive economic cooperation and trade. We should earnestly carry out such projects as the China-Central Asia natural gas pipelines and the China-Kazakhstan oil pipelines, and push forward the projects of new energy pipelines between China and Russia. We should accelerate the building of major transport projects, including the highway linking western China and western Europe, the China-Tajikistan highway and the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan highway. We should effectively operate and maintain the Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe railway, a recently opened logistics route between Asia and Europe. We should advance regional telecommunications network integration to shorten the geographical distance between Eurasian countries. China will continue to provide financing support for cross-border infrastructure construction.
Fourth, we need to deepen cultural and people-to-people exchanges to enhance friendship between our peoples. We should expand dialogue and exchanges between civilizations, respect each other's cultural traditions and religious customs, and promote mutual learning and harmonious coexistence. We should organize more exhibitions of art and cultural achievement, and translate and publish more fine works. We should send more students to each other's countries, pool resources to build joint universities and strengthen cooperation in human resources training. We should encourage our peoples to visit other Eurasian countries, host diverse activities for people-to-people friendship and facilitate the establishment of more sister provinces/states relations. We should advance friendly exchanges between academic institutions, youth organizations and news media. Stronger cultural and people-to-people exchanges will expand the mutual understanding and common views among the Eurasian people, strengthen their bond of amity and bolster the friendly relations between the countries.
